Why Tuesday?

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Oh my girlfriends…. May I say that as I write this it is in
fact Sunday and I find myself in bed. No, I am not unwell. No, there was no
sale on 8000 thread count sheets and no, I am not suffering the ill effects of
one too many cocktails. Truth be told- I had one Chinese margarita on Saturday at my favourite fusion bistro but ONE was my limit.

Please my sisters- don’t judge although I am in training for
my glory day in Honolulu,every girl
needs a cocktail once in a while.

But something in this get up and go girl, just got up and
went. Here I am laying like broccoli in my 600 thread counts on a perfect
Sunday morning. My schedule demands I recover from the 32km pain fest of running/insanity that took place the day before. While my head says get out of bed, my body suggests I should lay here for another 6-8 hours and watch every episode of the
Real Housewives of New York City. This of course is not appropriate marathon
training behaviour but somehow my heart just won’t budge.

Well, my sisters… the heart wants what the heart wants.

This brings me to a rather new concept for me… THE REST DAY.

I am rather unfamiliar with the concept of rest day. And
yes, like every misstep of my personality…. I blame my mother.

Mama is a woman who can’t sit still. God love the little
energetic woman who gave me life but truly- I blame her for not being able to
rest for a given period of time.

Let’s be clear- my mama is a pretty amazing lady. She raised
two kids while working full time and she has a “no-nonsense” way of going about
things. To this day she is 72 years old and still walks on atreadmill every morning for an hour….
With a knee brace. The broad (and I say broad with the highest of honours) is
unstoppable.

Some of my best conversations with my mother were held with
her back to me. Yes, my sisters- she was doing the dishes and I was sitting at
the kitchen table doing my homework. Now as an adult- our best conversations
are held by telephone. She is on the other end of the line walking on a
treadmill and I am on my Bluetooth biking over the Lion’s Gate Bridge.

Yes, Mama taught me many a great things- chief among them
was that an object in motion stays in motion.

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about my relative
inability to sit still. Sure there are the odd days where I do indeed lay like
broccoli but for the most part, I am a woman who does not like to take a load
off on a regular basis. Perhaps I’m afraid that once I sit down, I may never
get back up again, or perhaps it’s a clinical thing that I chose to ignore in
order to get things done.

But every once in a while I take what I call a “pajama day”.
This si a day where I schedule to stay in my pajamas and not move an inch. Make
no mistake- Pajama days occur maybe once every 6-9 months but they do act to
restore my sense of self.

On these the holiest of holies, I lie in bed with two fuzzy
monsters, a laptop and a PVR stocked full of reality television and HBO dramas.
I watch TV, surf the net and wait for my bed sores to develop.

On once such pajama day I could not help but lay there and
wonder about the effect of my lazy day on my overall well being.

According to a WHO Health and Work Performance Questionnaire
that assesses sick days, depression was cited as the number one reason for
absenteeism on the job. And a February 2010 issue of the Harvard Mental Health
Letter found that depression and anxiety were among the top five reasons for
absenteeism.

Americans are clearly suffering. According to the National
Comorbidity Survey Replication, about 26% of American adults aged 18 and older
suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year.

Eighty-two percent of employees admit to taking "mental
health days" to recover or recharge, according to a 2008 poll by ComPsych,
a provider of employee assistance programs.

The poll asked employees: "What would most likely cause
you to take a 'mental health day' (unplanned day off to recover or
recharge)?"

30 percent said family/relationship issues

20 percent said work stress/workload

15 percent said personal issues (financial, legal, other)

12 percent said lack of physical energy/well being

5 percent said boredom/lack of motivation

The survey included responses from 1,036 employees of
ComPsych client companies nationwide.

According to a study published in the July 2010 issue of the
Journal of Organizational Behavior, taking advantage of mental health days can
help reduce job demands and extend the positive effects of vacation. In the
study, individuals who took a full summer off from work returned with increased
productivity and less burn-out. However, within a month of working a full-time
schedule they reported feeling as though they had not even had a break.

Those workers who planned for and took advantage of regular
mental health days to focus on leisure time, relaxing activities reported
significantly less stress and burnout than co-workers who envisioned another
year before vacation rolled around again.

And so my Sundays in the bed indeed do fuel my Attention
Deficit Soul. Unfortunately due to my relative inability to be still, I am
unable to indulge more than once in a half dozen moons.

Although infrequent, they are evidence based. Now if you
will excuse me my sisters, I must roll over, take a Robaxacet and catch up on
season 3 of Boardwalk Empire. It’s tough work girlfriends…. But someone must
take one for the team.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

I bite my nails in a way that is truly offensive.Truth be told, I come by it honestly.
My mother bites her nails as well. I can remember as a child her perfect long
finger, with elegant fingernails polished to perfection. She sat in the front of
the 1975 Oldsmobile cutlass while my father drove. She chewed on her cuticles
as if she was manicurist on a mission.

And now more than 30 years later, I chew my hands with a vengeance.
It used to be a nervous habit and now it is just routine. I have tried
everything. I have tried bitter nail polish and gloves, acrylic overlays and
weekly manicure. I have bitten through it all like a fanatical rodent.

My nails have born the brunt of every nail fad known to
women. In the 1980’s I wore Lee Press on Nails. They were plastic nails that
were self-adhesive and pre-polished. They came in a variety of colours and
sizes and promised in a half an hour to transform any hands into movie stars.

My Press On’s were not available in Canada and were thus
bought typically on trips to the United States with my family. We drove from
Winnipeg, Manitoba to Fargo, North Dakota (it was 1983- there was little else
to do for fun) and there in a Target I was introduced to the fabulous world of
fake nails. I could bite my fingers to my heart’s content and within 30 minutes
in the safety of my hotel room, my nails could instantly be polished and
perfect again.

There I sat in the Holiday Inn in Fargo packet of LEE PRESS
ON’s in hand anticipating the magic. I looked down at my stubby, bitten nails
and imagined my long perfectly polished future.

Make no mistake; my future was perfectly polished, but
lasted only 12-14 hours. The nails rarely stayed on for longer than THAT day
and were no match for the chlorine content at the Holiday Inn pool. I loved my
nails, but I loved the water slide even more.

In the 1990’s I fell victim to the craze of the Acrylic
French Manicure. These fake nails are now popular among the adult film industry
stars and Intensive Care Nurses in Alberta. This is not an association but
merely an observation.

I spent most of my 20’s in the hands of various women of
Vietnamese descent as they painted my nail beds with acrylic based products in
pink and white in order to mimic a French manicure. They then took what can
only be described as miniature bench saw to may nails and sculpted them into my
own Sally Hansen advertisement.

My chewed up nail stubs were replaced by perfect long nail
beds that smelled like acetone and looked like a dream.I was on a contact high from the
chemical fumes and deliriously happy from the visual effects.

But when the look and the fumes wore off, my sober self bit
through the acrylic and the pain like a beaver from hell. Ten days and ten
fingers later and I was back where I started.

Now another decade has passed. Chanel comes out with a new
nail polish every season that is the “must have” of the moment. Each winter I
paint my nails a dark blue or black or red and promise to stop biting. I last a
week perhaps two or three and the polish is gnawed upon over and over again. I
make resolution after resolution and each one is broken as I bite back my
promises... one finger at a time.

In spring I paint my nails a pale pink or pearl or nude
colour and at $20 per bottle; the promise is renewed.I have paid for Karl Lagerfeld’s car with the amount of
Chanel nail polish that has been purchased in an attempt to banish my bad habit
and to no avail.

A study published in 1971 in the Journal Of Child
Development and Neurology showed that there may be a genetic component to nail
biting.According to the authors,
nail biting is a frequent habit in children. It usually appears between 4 and 6
years of age.About 35% of
children bite their until puberty when the rates increase to 40-45% of adolescents.
The majority of nail-biters give up the habit during their teens and it is only
occasionally observed in adults.

The habit is markedly familial. In a large percentage of
cases a history of nail biting during childhood by one or both of the parents can
be obtained. It has been suggested that the children learn to bite the nails by
imitating the parents, but this cannot be the case since parents usually stop
the habit before their children are born.

The study in the journal looked at identical and fraternal
twins and found that identical twins were twice as concordant for the habit of
nail biting (both twins biting) compared to fraternal twins. In severe nail
biters, identical twins were more than four times more likely to be concordant
for the habit than fraternal twins.

This points to more than a learned behaviour because logic
would argue that fraternal twins would both learn the same behaviour.

Winter has come
once again. I have bought Chanel’s now sold out colour (it is a puke brown but
apparently fabulous) and have piled on the paint and the promises once more. My
genetics will conspire against me as soon as I finish typing and I will stare
at my fingernails with wanton abandonment in preparation for my next chew….

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Yes, my sisters have likely heard that the New York Marathon
was cancelled. I had spent 5 months training for a race that never was.

Make no mistake, I am not a heartless cow- I strongly
believe that this race should NOT have gone ahead.

Perhaps it would have been a statement about the triumph of
a city in the face of adversity, however- it really was not the time to
celebrate.

New Yorkers were suffering and now was not the time to run
their streets. My marathon moment would have to wait for another year.

I can not but help to admit my sisters that I was indeed a
bit sad about the cancellation. I am human afterall. Yes, I know I should feel
fortunate that I have my health and my home- but it was indeed sad to train so
hard and not have something happen as planned.

Of course such is life.

I have always maintained that we must rise to the occasion.
Life hands us challenges and we must endure.

And so I did.

On Sunday morning having raised almost $2000 for the
American Red Cross, I put on my runner’s finest and along with thousand of my
closest friends- ran through Central Park.

24km later the voices in my head had ceased. I realized that
I indeed could have run the remaining 18 km when the time came due.

There was not the ceremony I was looking forward to. There was
no parade and the only one who knew my mileage was me.

It was indeed a personal run and not a public race. In a
time when my favourite city was suffering- I ran through its streets in
a moment of defiance. It was just another day and just another run but it was
my New York moment for THAT moment. I did not get my life changing race but I
had my health and my home and a sense of perspective.

No, this past Sunday, I did not get my marathon as planned.
Hurricane Sandy (that iotch) came and went and ruined a great deal more than
just my marathon dreams.

She stole so much from so many and my little run seems
immaterial now.

No evidence this week my sisters- just a week of reflection on
a storm in the east and in my heart.

Fret not, dear sisters- I have no doubt NYC will rise above
as she has done in the past and she’ll be more resilient than ever.

And make no mistake dear girlfriends, I too will learn the
right place to put this experience. At this moment there is still mixed
emotions for a challenge not yet completed.

But life is indeed about the challenges and how we face each
of them in stride.

Speaking of strides- Heads up NYC- get well soon, my ultimate
sister- I’ll be back next November to run your famed streets- for we- have some
serious memories to make.

About Me

Dr. Ali Zentner received her undergraduate medical degree from McMaster University and completed her Internal Medicine Residency with an extra year of Cardiology training at the University of Calgary. Ali has been practicing Internal Medicine since 2001 as a specialist in Cardiac Risk Management and Obesity. Ali is the author of The Weight Loss Prescription, published by Penguin books in 2013. It is the ultimate guide for healthy living and one hell of a book (no bias here). Ali also wrote A Good Life, a work of fiction, published in 2003. The novel has been best described as “Sex in the City” meets “ER” and details one woman’s struggle to find meaning in a world not always under her control. Both books are available on amazon.com. A classic overachiever, Dr. Zentner has completed the Vancouver marathon, and half marathons in New York, Vancouver and Toronto. She is an avid swimmer, runner and cyclist training for her next triathlon and who exercises to keep fit and to justify her next fashion purchase. She lives in Vancouver with her husband who says nothing about the size of his wife’s shoe closet (if he knows what is good for him)…